Evacuation orders ended as rain douses California wildfire
GOLETA, Calif. — A strong storm moved into Southern California on Wednesday, almost completely dousing a wildfire that had threatened thousands of homes but briefly raising the threat of debris flows from barren slopes. Residents in and below the fire area on the south Santa Barbara County coast were issued...
Utah hearing for Hawaii suspect in extreme cyberstalking
HONOLULU — A man arrested in Hawaii will be sent to Utah, where he’s accused of tormenting a family for more than year by sending more than 500 people to their house for unwanted services including food deliveries, repairs, tow trucks, locksmiths, plumbers and prostitutes. Loren Okamura was in Honolulu’s...
Wind could ground big balloons at NYC’s Thanksgiving parade
NEW YORK — Smokey Bear might feel like he’s battling Santa Ana winds — if he even gets a chance to fly. New York City’s big Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will take place Thursday amid strong winds that could potentially ground the giant character balloons, which have caused mishaps and...
MRIs of dense breasts find more cancer but also false alarms
Giving women with very dense breasts an MRI scan in addition to a mammogram led to fewer missed cancers but also to a lot of false alarms and treatments that might not have been needed, a large study found. The results give a clearer picture of the tradeoffs involved in...
Apache man moving ‘home’ to protest copper mine in Arizona
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Wendsler Nosie Sr. is drawn to a mountainous area in central Arizona where he and other Apaches have harvested medicinal plants, held coming-of-age ceremonies and gathered acorns for generations. On Thursday, he’ll start a three-day journey to make a permanent home in the area known as Chi’chil...
Utah banning ‘conversion therapy’ with Mormon church backing
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah is on its way to becoming the 19th state to ban the discredited practice of conversion therapy in January after state officials formed a proposal that has the support of the influential Church of a Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Republican Gov. Gary Herbert announced...
Navy cancels review for SEALs after firing of Navy secretary
SAN DIEGO — The Navy on Wednesday cancelled a peer-review process that would have determined if three Navy SEAL officers who supervised an enlisted SEAL convicted of posing with a dead teenage captive in Iraq should remain on the elite force. Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said the case was...
North Huntingdon woman was a whiz with numbers
Marion Campbell was a whiz with numbers. “She could total a column of numbers so easily, so she did the book work and managed the finances for the family’s business, Campbell’s Service Center,” said her daughter, Diane Rhodes of North Huntingdon. “She was very devoted to the business. That was...
With Wolf’s signature, Sunday hunting coming to Pa. in 2020
Pennsylvania hunters who clamored for a Saturday start to firearms deer season now have another reason to celebrate — Sunday hunting in 2020. Gov. Tom Wolf signed Senate Bill 147, lifting the ban on Sunday hunting, on Wednesday. The law allows hunting on three Sundays: one during rifle deer season,...
Scottdale man survived 90 combat bombing missions in two wars
John Kalish flew so many combat missions in World War II that he reached the maximum number allowed. Still in flight school on D-Day, Mr. Kalish was a navigator on 35 missions in the Mediterranean theater in 1944 and 1945. He got called back to active duty during the Korean...
Chemical weapons watchdog adds Novichok to banned list
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Member states of the global chemical weapons watchdog agreed Wednesday to update their list of banned substances for the first time by adding the nerve agent used in the attempted assassination last year of a former Russian double agent. The decision to add Novichok nerve agents...
5 dead, 3 hurt in ‘devastating’ Minneapolis high-rise fire
MINNEAPOLIS — A fire swept through a Minneapolis high-rise apartment building early Wednesday, killing five people and sending three others to the hospital, officials said. There was no immediate indication what caused the blaze in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, located in a part of Minneapolis called Little Mogadishu for the many...
Jimmy Carter out of hospital after treatment for brain bleed
ATLANTA — Former President Jimmy Carter has been released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after recovering from surgery to relieve pressure on his brain caused by bleeding from a fall. Carter Center spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said Wednesday that the Carters “look forward to enjoying Thanksgiving at home in Plains,...
U.S. Marshals: Marine deserter charged in murder case captured
ROANOKE, Va. — A Marine deserter wanted in the fatal shooting of his mother’s boyfriend was captured Wednesday after a weekslong, multistate search that had schools and neighborhoods on alert in Roanoke, Virginia. Michael Alexander Brown, 22, was safely taken into custody Wednesday morning in Franklin County, U.S. Marshals Service...
Plant explosion in Texas blows windows from homes miles away
PORT NECHES, Texas — Two massive explosions 13 hours apart tore through a Texas chemical plant Wednesday, and one left three workers injured. The blasts blew out windows and doors of nearby homes and prompted a mandatory evacuation of a 4-mile (seven-kilometer) radius from the plant in Port Neches in...
Spanish police tow cocaine-filled submarine to port
MADRID — Spanish police Tuesday managed to tow a sunken submarine believed to be carrying tons of cocaine into a northwestern port and began preparations to extract its cargo. Police were hoping to crane-lift the 65-foot submarine onto the dock at Port of Aldán so that they could get inside...
Miami man shoots, kills robber who pointed AK-47 in his faceVideo
Donovan Stewart said he didn’t like it when a would-be robber shoved an AK-47 rifle in his face. The 60-year-old Miami man said he had to think quickly after someone broke into his van while he was sleeping. His 11-year-old son and girlfriend were also in the van at the...
White House budget official: Trump was personally ‘directing’ freeze on U.S. military aid to UkraineVideo
A career official in the White House budget office told impeachment investigators earlier this month that President Donald Trump was personally “directing” the alleged quid pro quo freeze on nearly $400 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, according to a transcript of his closed-door deposition released Tuesday. Mark Sandy,...
New Jersey hospital gives patient wrong kidney during transplantVideo
Classic mixup. A hospital in New Jersey gave a kidney to the wrong patient during a transplant last week. Luckily, it appears that the mistake didn’t have tragic results. According to Philadelphia’s ABC-affiliate WPVI-TV, officials at Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital said the 51-year-old patient’s kidney transplant was successful...
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin pardons man in child sexual abuse case
LOUISVILLE — Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has pardoned a man serving life in prison for sexually abusing his 6-year-old stepdaughter. News outlets report Bevin issued the pardon Friday, saying that Paul Donel Hurt was wrongly convicted of first-degree sexual abuse and sodomy in Louisville in 2001. Hurt’s accuser recanted her...
New York City lawmakers vote to ban flavored vaping products
NEW YORK — New York City lawmakers voted Tuesday to ban flavored electronic cigarettes after a lawsuit halted a statewide ban. “We are acting to protect our kids by banning the e-cigarette flavors that have been hooking them for years,” Democratic City Council member Mark Levine said before the Council...
In Pa. and across the country, overdoses, suicides, alcoholism are leading Americans to earlier deaths
After nearly six decades of increasing life expectancy, U.S. average lifetimes have been declining since 2014, according to a bleak new report published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Drug overdoses — mainly opioids — suicides, alcoholic liver disease and conditions related to substance use disorder are...
Pa. lawmakers push to ban hand-held cellphone use while driving
A bill to ban certain uses of cellphones by Pennsylvania drivers has advanced in Harrisburg, and its sponsor believes motorists’ confusion about laws when they cross state borders — something they will be doing frequently of over Thanksgiving — is an argument for approval. State Rep. Rosemary Brown, a Monroe...
‘Tis the season: Pa. alcohol sales spike as holidays approach
It’s the holiday season, and everyone is getting into the spirit — or at the very least, into the spirits store. November and December are far and away the busiest times of the year at Pennsylvania’s Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores. The top single sales day in each of...
Philadelphia’s voting machines challenged in federal court
HARRISBURG — A federal court is being asked to force Pennsylvania to rescind its certification of a voting machine newly purchased by Philadelphia and at least two other counties in the state ahead of 2020’s presidential election. Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and several supporters filed court papers...
